Mary Fisher wrote:

Even if the people asking have no clue what they actually want, and it has
no possibility of ever working.

In fact the less scrupulous prefer it that way, because they can charge
them far more in the long run.

Is that the voice of personal experience? If so I don't respect it.

John can (and will) speak for himself. However, the practice of agreeing
unachievable or patently inadequate system specifications at the start
of a contract (and bidding low to secure it), then penalising the
customer heavily for the inevitable changes to those agreed
specifications, is notorious throughout the IT industry, throughout
public procurement, throughout outsourcing deals, and therefore all too
common in public-sector outsourced IT deals.

Rather than give you (possibly 'spun') chapter and verse, I invite you
to take a read through current and archived issues of 'Computing', one
of the UK IT industry's trade papers, conveniently on-line at
www.computing.co.uk - and/or its rival Computer Weekly, over at
www.computerweekly.com. Both papers survive through the advertising they
carry - for specific vacancies and for products and services; so it's in
their economic interests not to peddle an unremiting diet of 'this IT
thing, it's all one big con'. Nevertheless, I'm sure - without checking!
- that you'll find plenty of public-sector IT horror stories in its
columns. Whether you'll often find the analysis down to sharp practice
by IT vendors is more doubtful - for that you'd have to read the on-line
scandal-sheet, www.theregister.co.uk : though I call it the
scandal-sheet, it's read (and leaked to!) by a substantial fraction -
probably a majority - of IT practitioners.

Are all IT companies con artists? Certainly not: not even a majority.
But the kind of sharp practice (or is it just normal business, Matt
Crawford style) I describe does go on, and the relative naivety of much
public sector IT management perpetuates it.

We've drifted a long way from uk.d-i-y normal topics, and (having spent
a coupla hours on the roof between, and dammit in, showers, clearing out
drains and the moss which was clogging them up from higher up; and taken
the kids out to the cinema for Hitch-Hiker's Guide - pretty OK) I've a
bed to get to and work to be in not long after. So I'll draw to a close
on this topic now. I'm sorry if you feel too many of your questions and
points were ignored, but I for one have only so much time I choose to
spend in even so friendly and informative a group as this. Nor do I
expect to have convinced you; but I hope I've explained a little more
why I hold the opinions I do, and that you - and those following along -
come away with a bit of new information.

G'night - Stefek